c 


'ROBERT  ,E 

ilVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  D 
LA  JOLLA,  CALIFORNIA 


THE    BATTLE    OF    BELIEF 


BY 


THE  RIGHT  HON.  W.  E.  GLADSTONE,  M.  P. 


f  California 

Regional 

Facility 


REPRINTED   FROM   "THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY,"   MAY,    1888 


NEW  YORK 
ANSON  D.  F.  RANDOLPH  &  COMPANY 

38   WEST    TWKNTY-THIRD   STKKKT 


GOSPH  AND  rm;  OLD. 

'f    •4Robci  n    imat;ii:..  been 

.     •  .••  '.'•  •     in-  upical  English  <  hftrai  tei  •.  "  must  >..u 

•.tians,"  and  gradu.r 
Esu'  b,  and  each  subseqi 

Struggle.      As  a  result.  One  ga\e  up  his    belief    in  supernatural    rein 

{KhCT  rose  to  a   \\\*  d  their  lisiiii. 

:  fora  time  in  company  with  his  family  wh 

glinj;  doubts  and  unbel;  -her  to  plunge  into  Afn 

.is   a    missionary   of   the  old  Gospel       <  ' 

back  home  restored   to  health,  and   after  a  time   established,  not   a   ch  . 
but  the  club  o  Hrotherhood."   in    List    London;   the 

turned  broken   in   health  but  not  in  spirit,  only  for   a   more  thorough  equip- 
•   and  with  broader  plans  and  new  de>ires  to  win  a  continent  for  Christ. 

in  the  refined  atmosphere  of  art  and   science  and   !;• 
the  other  dwelt    in   the   coarse  environment  oi    a    pa^an    land. 

•  roki-  do'.vn   under   his    London    ia1  .in   the- 

pany  of  those  whom  he   best    loved,    hi-   went    abroad    in    search   of  health. 
but  only  ;th   these    incoherent    utterances    falling    from    his    lips 

. 
The  mrney  hotly  pressed    \,\  :K  inies  thirst 

.  was  for  eight  M-K   jiri>om-r  far  from  home,  kim: 

and  friends.      And  y- 1.  on   that   last  day  of   life,  he  wrote  in    his  diary — and 
the  ink  was  scarcely  dry  when  he  was  led  forth  to  be  shot  to  death  : 

"  (I  •  ;:,         I       n:    /  /j    /i,;',/  Up  by 

>n  xxx.,  which  came  (<>  n.  i  near  me 

last  r.  .  not  to  have  m*  yet"     V. 

his  last  words  :>-nds   m    Kni^land  (written    n-  t    loiiii   befo: 

scribbled  "ij)  of  -ome  camp-tire,  wen- •  •• //" //m  is  ///    /</>/</• 

'/  my  furthty  history,  thfn  t-  '.'  in-  the  /  '   ///,-  li,;i 

blots  and  smudges,  but  sweet  converse  in  the  presence  of  the  I.timb." — N    \ 
Observer. 


•Tur  Lint  or  JAMES  HA.f> 
Afnci.    A  Htanrv  of  hb  Life  and 

•^fcfao-     With  porUmh.  map.  and  numi -r  .,  51.  .-5.     S'.-m  by  mail 

oo  rtccipt  U  price.     New  York :  A»«O5  L).   h.  RA.  .  Co. 


ROBERT   ELSMERE" 


AND 


THE    BATTLE    OF    BELIEF 


BY 

THE  RIGHT  HON.  W.  E.  GLADSTONE,  M.  P. 


REPRINTED  FROM  «'  THB  NINETEENTH  CENTURY,"  MAY,   1888 


NEW  YORK 
ANSON    D.    F.    RANDOLPH    &   COMPANY 

38  WEST  TWENTY-THIRD  STREET 


"  ROBERT  ELSMERE  "  AND  THE  BATTLE 
OF  BELIEF.* 

HUMAN  NATURE,  when  aggrieved,  is  apt  and  quick 
in  devising  compensations.  The  increasing  serious- 
ness and  strain  of  our  present  life  may  have  had  the 
effect  of  bringing  about  the  large  preference,  which  I 
understand  to  be  exhibited  in  local  public  libraries, 
for  works  of  fiction.  This  is  the  first  expedient  of 
revenge.  But  it  is  only  a  link  in  a  chain.  The  next 
step  is,  that  the  writers  of  what  might  be  grave  books, 
in  esse  or  in  posse,  have  endeavored  with  some  suc- 
cess to  circumvent  the  multitude.  Those  who  have 
systems  or  hypotheses  to  recommend  in  philosophy, 
conduct,  or  religion  induct  them  into  the  costume  of 
romance.  Such  was  the  second  expedient  of  nature, 
the  counterstroke  of  her  revenge.  When  this  was 
done  in  "  Te"le"maque,"  "  Rasselas,"  or  "  Ccelebs,"  it 
was  not  without  literary  effect.  Even  the  last  of 
these  three  appears  to  have  been  successful  with  its 
own  generation.  It  would  now  be  deemed  intolera- 
bly dull.  But  a  dull  book  is  easily  renounced.  The 

*  "  Robert  Elsmere,"  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  author  of 
"Miss  Bretherton."  The  references  are  to  the  one-volume 
edition  of  "  Robert  Elsmere "  published  in  the  United 
States  by  Messrs.  Macmillan  &  Co.— A.  D.  F.  R.  &  Co. 


4  "ROBERT  E 

more  didactic  fictions  of  the  present  day,  so  far  as  I 
know  them,  are  not  dull.  We  take  them  up,  how- 
ever, and  we  find  that,  when  we  meant  to  go  to  play, 
we  have  gone  to  school.  The  romance  is  a  gospel  of 
some  philosophy,  or  of  some  religion ;  and  requires 
sustained  thought  on  many  or  some  of  the  deepest 
subjects,  as  the  only  rational  alternative  to  placing 
ourselves  at  the  mercy  of  our  author.  We  find  that 
he  has  put  upon  us  what  is  not  indeed  a  treatise,  but 
more  formidable  than  if  it  were.  For  a  treatise  must 
nowhere  beg  the  question  it  seeks  to  decide,  but  must 
carry  its  reader  onward  by  reasoning  patiently  from 
step  to  step.  But  the  writer  of  the  romance,  under 
the  convenient  necessity  which  his  form  imposes, 
skips  in  thought,  over  undefined  distances,  from  stage 
to  stage,  as  a  bee  from  flower  to  flower.  A  creed 
may  (as  here)  be  accepted  in  a  sentence,  and  then 
abandoned  in  a  page.  But  we,  the  common  herd  of 
readers,  if  we  are  to  deal  with  the  consequences,  to 
accept  or  repel  the  influence  of  the  book,  must,  as  in 
a  problem  of  mathematics,  supply  the  missing  steps. 
Thus,  in  perusing  as  we  ought  a  propagandist  ro- 
mance, we  must  terribly  increase  the  pace  ;  and  it  is 
the  pace  that  kills. 

Among  the  works  to  which  the  preceding  remarks 
might  apply,  the  most  remarkable  within  my  knowl- 
edge is  "  Robert  Elsmere."  It  is  indeed  remarkable 
in  many  respects.  It  is  a  novel  of  nearly  twice  the 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE"  5 

length,  and  much  more  than  twice  the  matter,  of 
ordinary  novels.  It  dispenses  almost  entirely,  in  the 
construction  of  what  must  still  be  called  its  plot,  with 
the  aid  of  incident  in  the  ordinary  sense.  We  have 
indeed  near  the  close  a  solitary  individual  crushed  by 
a  wagon,  but  this  catastrophe  has  no  relation  to  the 
plot,  and  its  only  purpose  is  to  exhibit  a  good  death- 
bed in  illustration  of  the  great  missionary  idea  of  the 
piece.  The  nexus  of  the  structure  is  to  be  found 
wholly  in  the  workings  of  character.  The  assump- 
tion and  the  surrender  of  a  rectory  are  the  most  salient 
events,  and  they  are  simple  results  of  what  the  actor 
has  thought  right.  And  yet  the  great,  nay,  para- 
mount function  of  character-drawing,  the  projection 
upon  the  canvas  of  human  beings  endowed  with  the 
true  forces  of  nature  and  vitality,  does  not  appear  to 
be  by  any  means  the  master-gift  of  the  authoress. 
In  the  mass  of  matter  which  she  has  prodigally  ex- 
pended there  might  obviously  be  retrenchment ;  for 
there  are  certain  laws  of  dimension  which  apply  to  a 
novel,  and  which  separate  it  from  an  epic.  In  the 
extraordinary  number  of  personages  brought  upon 
the  stage  in  one  portion  or  other  of  the  book,  there 
are  some  which  are  elaborated  with  greater  pains  and 
more  detail,  than  their  relative  importance  seems  to 
warrant.  "  Robert  Elsmere  "  is  hard  reading,  and 
requires  toil  and  effort.  Yet,  if  it  be  difficult  to  per- 
sist, it  is  impossible  to  stop.  The  prisoner  on  the 


6  "ROBERT  ELSMERE" 

treadmill  must  work  severely  to  perform  his  task  ; 
but  if  he  stops  he  at  once  receives  a  blow  which 
brings  him  to  his  senses.  Here,  as  there,  it  is  human 
infirmity  which  shrinks ;  but  here,  as  not  there,  the 
propelling  motive  is  within.  Deliberate  judgment 
and  deep  interest  alike  rebuke  a  fainting  reader. 
The  strength  of  the  book,  overbearing  every  ob- 
stacle, seems  to  lie  in  an  extraordinary  wealth  of 
diction,  never  separated  from  thought ;  in  a  close 
and  searching  faculty  of  social  observation  ;  in  gener- 
ous appreciation  of  what  is  morally  good,  impartially* 
exhibited  in  all  directions :  above  all,  in  the  sense  of 
mission  with  which  the  writer  is  evidently  possessed, 
and  in  the  earnestness  and  persistency  of  purpose 
with  which  through  every  page  and  line  it  is  pursued. 
The  book  is  eminently  an  offspring  of  the  time,  and 
will  probably  make  a  deep  or  at  least  a  very  sensible 
impression  ;  not,  however,  among  mere  novel-readers, 
but  among  those  who  share,  in  whatever  sense,  the 
deeper  thought  of  the  period. 

The  action  begins  in  a  Westmoreland  valley,  where 
the  three  young  daughters  of  a  pious  clergyman  arc 
grouped  around  a  mother  infirm  in  health  and  with- 
out force  of  mind.  All  responsibility  devolves  ac- 

*  Mrs.  Ward  has  given  evidence  of  this  impartiality  in  her 
Dedication  to  the  memory  of  two  friends,  of  whom  one,  Mrs. 
Alfred  Lyttelton,  lived  and  died  unshaken  in  belief.  The 
other  is  more  or  less  made  known  in  the  pages  of  the  work. 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  7 

cordingly  upon  Catherine,  the  eldest  of  the  three  ;  a 
noble  character,  living  only  for  duty  and  affection. 
When  the  ear  heard  her,  then  it  blessed  her ;  and 
when  the  eye  saw  her,  it  gave  witness  to  her.*  Here 
comes  upon  the  scene  Robert  Elsmere,  the  eponym- 
ist  and  hero  of  the  book,  and  the  ideal,  almost  the 
idol,  of  the  authoress. 

He  had  been  brought  up  at  Oxford,  in  years  when 
the  wholesale  discomfiture  of  the  great  religious  move- 
ment in  the  University,  which  followed  upon  the  se- 
cession of  Cardinal  Newman,  had  been  in  its  turn 
succeeded  by  a  new  religious  reaction.  The  youth 
had  been  open  to  the  personal  influences  of  a  tutor, 
who  is  in  the  highest  degree  beautiful,  classical,  and 
indifferentist ;  and  of  a  noble-minded  rationalizing 
teacher,  whose  name,  Mr.  Grey,  is  the  thin  disguise 
of  another  name,  and  whose  lofty  character,  together 
with  his  gifts,  and  with  the  tendencies  of  the  time, 
had  made  him  a  power  in  Oxford.  But,  in  its  action 
on  a  nature  of  devout  susceptibilities  as  well  as  active 
talents,  the  place  is  stronger  than  the  man,  and  Robert 
casts  in  his  lot  with  the  ministry  of  the  Church.  Let 
us  stop  at  this  point  to  notice  the  terms  used.  At 
St.  Mary's  "  the  sight  and  the  experience  touched  his 
inmost  feeling,  and  satisfied  all  the  poetical  and  dra- 
matic instincts  of  a  passionate  nature."f  He  "  carried 

*  See  Job  xxix.  n.  1 63. 


8  "ROBERT  ELS  MERE." 

his  religious  passion  ....  into  the  service  of  the 
great  positive  tradition  around  him."  This  i; rut,  and 
commonly  life-governing  decision,  is  taken  under  the 
influence  of  forces  wholly  emotional.  It  is  first  after 
the  step  taken  that  we  have  an  inkling  of  any  reason 
for  it.*  This  is  not  an  isolated  phenomenon.  It  is 
a  key  to  the  entire  action.  The  work  may  be  summed 
up  in  this  way :  it  represents  a  battle  between  intel- 
lect and  emotion.  Of  right,  intellect  wins  ;  and,  hav- 
ing won,  enlists  emotion  in  its  service. 

Elsmere  breaks  upon  us  in  Westmoreland,  prepared 
to  make  the  great  commission  the  business  of  his  life, 
and  to  spend  and  be  spent  in  it  to  the  uttermost. 
He  is  at  once  attracted  by  Catherine  ;  attention  forth- 
with ripens  into  love  ;  and  love  finds  expression  in  a 
proposal.  But,  with  a  less  educated  intelligence,  the 
girl  has  a  purpose  of  life  not  less  determined  than  the 
youth.  She  believes  herself  to  have  an  outdoor  voca- 
tion in  the  glen,  and  above  all  an  indoor  vocation  in 
her  family,  of  which  she  is  the  single  prop.  A  long 
battle  of  love  ensues,  fought  out  with  not  less  ability, 
and  with  even  greater  tenacity,  than  the  remarkable 
conflict  of  intellects,  carried  on  by  correspondence, 
which  ended  in  the  marriage  between  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Carlyle.  The  resolute  tension  of  the  two  minds  has 
many  phases ;  and  a  double  crisis,  first  of  refusal,  sec- 


65. 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  g 

ondly  of  acceptance.  This  part  of  the  narrative, 
wrought  out  in  detail  with  singular  skill,  will  probably 
be  deemed  the  most  successful,  the  most  normal,  of 
the  whole.  It  is  thoroughly  noble  on  both  sides. 
The  final  surrender  of  Catherine  is  in  truth  an  open- 
ing of  the  eyes  to  a  wider  view  of  the  evolution  of 
the  individual,  and  of  the  great  vocation  of  life  ;  and 
it  involves  no  disparagement.  The  garrison  evacu- 
ates the  citadel,  but  its  arms  have  not  been  laid  down, 
and  its  colors  are  flying  still. 

So  the  pair  settle  themselves  in  a  family  living,  full 
of  the  enthusiasm  of  humanity,  which  is  developed 
with  high  energy  in  every  practical  detail,  and 
based  upon  the  following  of  the  Incarnate  Saviour. 
Equipped  thus  far  with  all  that  renders  life  desirable, 
their  union  is  blessed  by  the  birth  of  a  daughter,  and 
everything  thrives  around  them  for  the  formation  of 
an  ideal  parish. 

But  the  parish  is  adorned  by  a  noble  old  English 
mansion,  and  the  mansion  inhabited  by  a  wealthy 
Squire,  who  knows  little  of  duty,  but  is  devoted  to 
incessant  study.  As  an  impersonated  intellect,  he  is 
abreast  of  all  modern  inquiry,  and,  a  "  Tractarian  "  in 
his  youth,  he  has  long  abandoned  all  belief.  At  the 
outset,  he  resents  profoundly  the  Rector's  obtrusive 
concern  for  his  neglected  tenantry.  But  the  courage 
of  the  clergyman  is  not  to  be  damped  by  isolation, 
and  in  the  case  of  a  scandalously  insanitary  hamlet, 


10  "KOBERT 

after  an  adequate  number  of  deaths,  Mr.  Wendover 
puts  aside  the  screen  called  his  agent,  and  rebuilds 
with  an  ample  generosity.  This  sudden  and  com- 
plete surrender  seems  to  be  introduced  to  glorify  the 
hero  of  the  work,  for  it  does  not  indicate  any  perma- 
nent change  in  the  social  ideas  of  Mr.  Wendover,  but 
only  in  his  relations  to  his  clergyman. 

There  is,  however,  made  ready  for  him  a  superla- 
tive revenge.  Robert  has  enjoyed  the  use  of  his  rich 
library,  and  the  two  hold  literary  communications, 
but  with  a  compact  of  silence  on  matters  of  belief. 
This  treaty  is  honorably  observed  by  the  Squire. 
But  the  clergyman  invites  his  fate.*  Mr.  Wendover 
makes  known  to  him  a  great  design  for  a  "  History 
of  Testimony/'t  worked  out  through  many  centuries. 
The  book  speaks  indeed  of  "  the  long  wrestle  "  of  the 
two  men,  and  the  Iike4  But  of  Elsmere's  wrestling 
there  is  no  other  trace  or  sign.  What  weapons  the 
Rector  wielded  for  his  faith,  what  strokes  he  struck, 
has  not  even  in  a  single  line  been  recorded.  The  dis- 
course of  the  Squire  points  out  that  theologians  are 
men  who  decline  to  examine  evidence,  that  miracles 
are  the  invention  of  credulous  ages,  that  the  precon- 
ceptions sufficiently  explain  the  results.  He  wins  in 
a  canter.  There  cannot  surely  be  a  more  curious 
contrast  than  that  between  the  real  battle,  fought 

*3'5-  t3»4-  *3'6. 317- 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  II 

in  a  hundred  rounds,  between  Elsmere  and  Cath- 
erine on  marriage,  and  the  fictitious  battle  between 
Elsmere  and  the  Squire  on  the  subject  of  religion, 
where  the  one  side  is  a  paean,  and  the  other  a  blank. 
A  great  creed,  with  the  testimony  of  eighteen  centu- 
ries at  its  back,  cannot  find  an  articulate  word  to  say 
in  its  defence,  and  the  downfall  of  the  scheme  of  be- 
lief shatters  also,  and  of  right,  the  highly-ordered 
scheme  of  life  that  had  nestled  in  the  Rectory  of 
Murewell,  as  it  still  does  in  thousands  of  other  Eng- 
lish parsonages. 

It  is  notable  that  Elsmere  seeks,  in  this  conflict 
with  the  Squire,  no  aid  or  counsel  whatever.  He 
encounters  indeed  by  chance  Mr.  Newcome,  a  Ritual- 
istic clergyman,  whom  the  generous  sympathies  of 
the  authoress  place  upon  the  roll  of  his  friends.  But 
the  language  of  Mr.  Newcome  offers  no  help  to  his 
understanding.  It  is  this : 

"  Trample  on  yourself.  Pray  down  the  demon,  fast,  scourge, 
kill  the  body,  that  the  soul  may  live.  What  are  we  miserable 
worms,  that  we  should  defy  the  Most  High,  that  we  should 
set  our  wretched  faculties  against  His  Omnipotence  ?  "  * 

Mr.  Newcome  appears  everywhere  as  not  only  a 
respectable  but  a  remarkable  character.  But  as  to 
what  he  says  here,  how  much  does  it  amount  to  ? 
Considered  as  a  medicine  for  a  mind  diseased,  for  an 


329- 


12  "ROBERT  ELSMERE." 

unsettled,  dislocated  soul,  is  it  less  or  more  than  pure 
nonsense?  In  the  work  of  an  insidious  non-believer, 
it  would  be  set  down  as  part  of  his  fraud.  Mrs. 
Ward  evidently  gives  it  in  absolute  good  faith.  It  is 
one  in  a  series  of  indications,  by  which  this  gifted 
authoress  conveys  to  us  what  appears  to  be  her  thor- 
oughly genuine  belief  that  historical  Christianity  has, 
indeed,  broad  grounds  and  deep  roots  in  emotion, 
but  in  reason  none  whatever. 

The  revelation  to  the  wife  is  terrible  ;  but  Cather- 
ine clings  to  her  religion  on  a  basis  essentially  akin 
to  that  of  Newcome  ;  and  the  faith  of  these  eighteen 
centuries,  and  of  the  prime  countries  of  the  world, 

"  Bella,  immortal,  benefica 
Fede,  ai  trionfi  avvezza,"* 

is  dismissed  without  a  hearing. 

For  my  own  part,  I  humbly  retort  on  Robert  Els- 
mere.  Considered  intellectually,  his  proceedings  in 
regard  to  belief  appear  to  me,  from  the  beginning  as 
well  as  in  the  downward  process,  to  present  dismal 
gaps.  But  the  emotional  part  of  his  character  is 
complete,  nay  redundant.  There  is  no  moral  weak- 
ness or  hesitation.  There  rises  up  before  him  the 
noble  maxim,  assigned  to  the  so-called  Mr.  Grey  (with 
whom  he  has  a  consultation  of  foregone  conclusions), 
"  Conviction  is  the  conscience  of  the  mind." 

*  Manzoni's  "Cinque  Maggio." 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  13 

He  renounces  his  parish  and  his  orders.  He  still 
believes  in  God,  and  accepts  the  historical  Christ  as  a 
wonderful  man,  good  among  the  good,  but  a  primus 
inter  pares.  Passing  through  a  variety  of  stages,  he 
devotes  himself  to  the  religion  of  humanity;  recon- 
ciles to  the  new  gospel,  by  shoals,  skilled  artisans  of 
London  who  had  been  totally  inaccessible  to  the  old 
one ;  and  nobly  kills  himself  with  overwork,  passing 
away  in  a  final  flood  of  light.  He  founds  and  leaves 
behind  him  the  "  New  Christian  Brotherhood  "  of 
Elgood  Street ;  and  we  are  at  the  close  apprised,  with 
enthusiastic  sincerity,  that  this  is  the  true  effort  of 
the  race,*  and 

"  Others  I  doubt  not,  if  not  we, 
The  issue  of  our  toils  shall  see." 

Who  can  grudge  to  this  absolutely  pure-minded  and 
very  distinguished  writer  the  comfort  of  having  at 
last  found  the  true  specific  for  the  evils  and  miseries 
of  the  world  ?  None  surely  who  bear  in  mind  that 
the  Salvation  Army  has  been  known  to  proclaim 
itself  the  Church  of  the  future,  or  who  happen  to 
know  that  Bunsen,  when  in  1841  he  had  procured  the 
foundation  of  the  bishopric  of  Jerusalem,  suggested 
in  private  correspondence  his  hope  that  this  might 
be  the  Church  which  would  meet  the  glorified  Re- 
deemer at  His  coming. 

*  604. ;  comp.  532, 


I4  "RO&EKT 

It  is  necessary  here  to  revert  to  the  Squire.  Him. 
self  the  ttolpa  ninpw^vrj,  the  supreme  arbiter  of 
destinies  in  the  book,  he  is  somewhat  unkindly 
treated  ;  his  mind  at  length  gives  way,  and  a  dark- 
ling  veil  is  drawn  over  the  close.  Here  seems  to  be 
a  little  literary  intolerance,  something  even  savoring 
of  a  religious  test.  Robert  Elsmere  stopped  in  the 
downward  slide  at  theism,  and  it  calms  and  glorifies 
his  deathbed.  But  the  Squire  had  not  stopped  there. 
He  had  said  to  Elsmere,*  "  You  are  playing  into  the 
hands  of  the  Blacks.  All  this  theistic  philosophy  of 
yours  only  means  so  much  grist  to  their  mill  in  the 
end."  But  the  great  guide  is  dismissed  from  his 
guiding  office  as  summarily  as  all  other  processes  are 
conducted,  which  are  required  by  the  purpose  of  the 
writer.  Art  everywhere  gives  way  to  purpose.  Els- 
mere no  more  shows  cause  for  his  theism  than  he  had 
shown  it  against  his  Christianity.  Why  was  not  Mr. 
Wendover  allowed  at  least  the  consolations  which 
gave  a  satisfaction  to  David  Hume  ? 

Not  yet,  however,  may  I  wholly  part  from  this 
sketch  of  the  work.  It  is  so  large  that  much  must 
be  omitted.  But  there  is  one  limb  of  the  plan  which 
is  peculiar.  Of  the  two  sisters  not  yet  named,  one, 
Agnes  by  name,  appears  only  as  quasi-chaperon  or  as 
"  dummie."  But  Rose,  the  third,  has  beauty,  the 

*5<>7. 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  15 

gift  of  a  musical  artist,  and  quick  and  plastic  social 
faculties.  Long  and  elaborate  love  relations  are  de- 
veloped between  her  and  the  poco-curante  tutor  and 
friend,  Mr.  Langham.  Twice,  she  is  fairly  embarked 
in  passion  for  him,  and  twice  he  jilts  her.  Still  she 
is  not  discouraged,  and  she  finally  marries  a  certain 
Flaxman,  an  amiable  but  somewhat  manufactured 
character.  From  the  standing-point  of  art,  can  this 
portion  of  the  book  fail  to  stir  much  misgiving  ?  We 
know  from  Shakespeare  how  the  loves  of  two  sisters 
can  be  comprised  within  a  single  play.  But  while 
the  drama  requires  only  one  connected  action,  the 
novel,  and  eminently  this  novel,  aims  rather  at  the 
exhibition  of  a  life  :  and  the  reader  of  these  volumes 
may  be  apt  to  say  that  in  working  two  such  lives,  as 
those  of  Catherine  and  Rose,  through  so  many  stages, 
the  authoress  has  departed  from  previous  example, 
and  has  loaded  her  ship,  though  a  gallant  one,  with 
more  cargo  than  it  will  bear. 

It  may  indeed  be  that  Mrs.  Ward  has  been  led  to 
charge  her  tale  with  such  a  weight  of  matter  from  a 
desire  to  give  philosophical  completeness  to  her  rep- 
resentation of  the  mainsprings  of  action  which  mark 
the  life  of  the  period.  For  in  Robert  Elsmere  we 
have  the  tempered  but  aggressive  action  of  the  sceptical 
intellect ;  in  Catherine  the  strong  reaction  against  it ; 
in  Rose  the  art-life  ;  and  in  Langham  the  literary  and 
cultivated  indifference  of  the  time.  The  comprehen- 


16  "  ROBER  T 

sivcncss  of  such  a  picture  may  be  admitted,  without 
withdrawing  the  objection  that,  as  a  practical  result 
the  cargo  is  too  heavy  for  the  vessel. 

Apart  from  this  question,  is  it  possible  to  pass  with- 
out a  protest  the  double  jilt  ?  Was  Rose,  with  her 
quick  and  self-centred  life,  a  well-chosen  corpus  vile 
upon  whom  to  pass  this  experiment  ?  More  broadly, 
though  credible  perhaps  for  a  man,  is  such  a  process  in 
any  case  possible  by  the  laws  of  art  for  a  woman  ?  Does 
she  not  violate  the  first  conditions  of  her  nature  in 
exposing  herself  to  so  piercing  an  insult  ?  An  en- 
hancement of  delicate  self-respect  is  one  among  the 
compensations,  which  Providence  has  supplied  in 
woman,  to  make  up  for  a  deficiency  in  some  ruder 
kinds  of  strength. 

Again,  I  appeal  to  the  laws  of  art  against  the  final 
disposal  of  Catherine.  Having  much  less  of  ability  than 
her  husband,  she  is  really  drawn  with  greater  force 
and  truth  ;  and  possesses  so  firm  a  fibre  that  when, 
having  been  bred  in  a  school  of  some  intolerance,  she 
begins  to  blunt  the  edge  of  her  resistance,  and  to 
tolerate  in  divers  ways,  without  adopting,  the  de- 
nuded system  of  her  husband,  we  begin  to  feel  that 
the  key-note  of  her  character  is  being  tampered  with. 
After  his  death,  the  discords  become  egregious.  She 
remains,  as  she  supposes,  orthodox  and  tenaciously 
Evangelical.  But  every  knee  must  be  made  to  bow 
to  Elsmere.  So  she  does  not  return  to  the  northern 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE:  17 

valley  and  her  mother's  declining  age,  but  in  London 
devotes  her  week-days  to  carrying  on  the  institutions 
of  charity  he  had  founded  on  behalf  of  his  new  re- 
ligion. He  had  himself  indignantly  remonstrated 
with  some  supposed  clergyman,  who,  in  the  guise  of 
a  Broad  Churchman,  at  once  held  Elsmere's  creed 
and  discharged  externally  the  office  of  an  Anglican 
priest.  He  therefore  certainly  is  not  responsible  for 
having  taught  her  to  believe  the  chasm  between  them 
was  a  narrow  one.  Yet  she  leaps  or  steps  across  it 
every  Sunday,  attending  her  church  in  the  forenoon, 
and  looming  as  regularly  every  afternoon  in  the  tem- 
ple of  the  New  Brotherhood.  Here  surely  the  claims 
of  system  have  marred  the  work  of  art.  Characters 
might  have  been  devised  whom  this  see-saw  would 
have  suited  well  enough  ;  but  for  the  Catherine  of 
the  first  volume  it  is  an  unmitigated  solecism  ;  a 
dismal,  if  not  even  a  degrading  compromise. 

It  has  been  observed  that  the  women  of  the  book 
are  generally  drawn  with  more  felicity  than  the  men. 
As  a  work  of  art,  Rose  is  in  my  view  the  most  suc- 
cessful of  the  women,  and  among  the  men  the  Squire. 
With  the  Squire  Mrs.  Ward  is  not  in  sympathy,  for  he 
destroys  too  much,  and  he  does  nothing  but  destroy. 
She  cannot  be  in  sympathy  with  Rose  ;  for  Rose, 
who  is  selfishly  and  heartlessly  used,  is  herself  selfish 
and  heartless  ;  with  this  aggravation,  that  she  has 
grown  up  in  immediate  contact  with  a  noble  elder 


is  -ROBERT  ELSMERE: 

sister,  and  yet  has  not  caught  a  particle  of  nobleness, 
aa  well  as  in  view  of  an  infirm  mother  to  whom  she 
scarcely  gives  a  care.  On  the  other  hand,  in  her 
Robert,  who  has  all  Mrs.  Ward's  affection  and  almost 
her  worship,  and  who  is  clothed  with  a  perfect  pano- 
ply of  high  qualities,  she  appears  to  be  less  successful 
and  more  artificial.  In  the  recently  published  corre- 
spondence* of  Sir  Henry  Taylor,  who  was  by  no 
means  given  to  paradox,  we  are  told  that  great  earn- 
estness of  purpose  and  strong  adhesive  sympathies 
in  an  author  are  adverse  to  the  freedom  and  inde- 
pendence of  treatment,  the  disembarrassed  movement 
of  the  creative  hand,  which  are  required  in  the  su- 
preme poetic  office  of  projecting  character  on  the 
canvas.  If  there  be  truth  in  this  novel  and  interest- 
ing suggestion,  we  cannot  wonder  at  finding  the  re- 
sult exhibited  in  "  Robert  Elsmere,"  for  never  was  a 
book  written  with  greater  persistency  and  intensity  of 
purpose.  Every  page  of  its  principal  narrative  is 
adapted  and  addressed  by  Mrs.  Ward  to  the  final  aim 
which  is  bone  of  her  bone  and  flesh  of  her  flesh.  This 
aim  is  to  expel  the  preternatural  element  from  Chris- 
tianity, to  destroy  its  dogmatic  structure,  yet  to  keep 
intact  the  moral  and  spiritual  results.  The  Brother- 
h«x>d  presented  to  us  with  such  sanguine  hopefulness 
v  a  "  Christian  "  brotherhood,  but  with  a  Christianity 

*  Page  17. 


"ROBERT  ELS  MERE."  19 

emptied  of  that  which  Christians  believe  to  be  the 
soul  and  springhead  of  its  life.  For  Christianity,  in 
the  established  Christian  sense,  is  the  presentation  to 
us  not  of  abstract  dogmas  for  acceptance,  but  of  a  liv- 
ing and  a  Divine  Person,  to  whom  they  are  to  be  united 
by  a  vital  incorporation.  It  is  the  reunion  to  God  of 
a  nature  severed  from  God  by  sin,  and  the  process  is 
one,  not  of  teaching  lessons,  but  of  imparting  a  new 
life,  with  its  ordained  equipment  of  gifts  and  powers. 
It  is,  I  apprehend,  a  complete  mistake  to  suppose, 
as  appears  to  be  the  supposition  of  this  remarkable 
book,  that  all  which  has  to  be  done  with  Scripture,  in 
order  to  effect  the  desired  transformation  of  religion, 
is  to  eliminate  from  it  the  miraculous  element.  Tre. 
mendous  as  is  the  sweeping  process  which  extrudes 
the  Resurrection,  there  is  much  else,  which  is  in  no 
sense  miraculous,  to  extrude  along  with  it.  The  Pro- 
cession of  Palms,  for  example,  is  indeed  profoundly 
significant,  but  it  is  in  no  way  miraculous.  Yet,  in 
any  consistent  history  of  a  Robert  Elsmere's  Christ, 
there  could  be  no  Procession  of  Palms.  Unless  it  be 
the  healing  of  the  ear  of  Malchus,  there  is  not  a  mi- 
raculous event  between  the  commencement  of  the 
Passion  and  the  Crucifixion  itself.  Yet  the  notes  of 
a  superhuman  majesty  overspread  the  whole.  We 
talk  of  all  religions  as  essentially  one  ;  but  what  re- 
ligion presents  to  its  votaries  such  a  tale  as  this? 
Bishop  Temple,  in  his  sermons  at  Rugby,  has  been 


20  "  ROBER  T  ELS  MERE. " 

among  the  later  teachers  who  have  shown  how  the 
whole  behavior  of  our  Lord,  in  this  extremity  of 
His  abasement,  seems  more  than  ever  to  transcend  all 
human  limits,  and  to  exhibit  without  arguing  11;- 
Divinity.  The  parables,  again,  are  not  less  refractory, 
than  the  miracles,  and  must  disappear  along  with 
them  :  for  what  parables  are  there  which  are  not 
built  upon  the  idea  of  His  unique  and  transcendent 
office?  The  Gospel  of  Saint  John  has  much  less  of 
miracle  than  the  Synoptics ;  but  it  must  of  course 
descend  from  its  pedestal,  in  all  that  is  most  its  own. 
And  what  is  gained  by  all  this  condemnation,  until 
we  get  rid  of  the  Baptismal  formula  ?  It  is  a  ques- 
tion not  of  excision  from  the  gospels,  but  of  tearing 
them  into  shreds.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  deny  that 
the  parts  which  remain,  or  which  remain  legible,  are 
vital  parts  ;  but  this  is  no  more  than  to  say  that  there 
may  remain  vital  organs  of  a  man,  after  the  man  him- 
self has  been  cut  in  pieces. 

I  have  neither  space  nor  capacity  at  command  for 
the  adequate  discussion  of  the  questions,  which  shat- 
tered the  faith  of  Robert  Elsmere  :  whether  miracles 
can  happen,  and  whether  "  an  universal  preconcep- 
tion "  in  their  favor  at  the  birth  of  Christianity  "  gov- 
erning the  work  of  all  men  of  all  schools,"*  adequately 
accounts  for  the  place  which  has  been  given  to  them 

*  317.  318- 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  21 

in  the  New  Testament,  as  available  proofs  of  the  Di- 
vine Mission  of  our  Lord.  But  I  demur  on  all  the 
points  to  the  authority  of  the  Squire,  and  even  of 
Mr.  Grey. 

The  impossibility  of  miracle  is  a  doctrine  which 
appears  to  claim  for  its  basis  the  results  of  physical 
inquiry.  They  point  to  unbroken  sequences  in  mate- 
rial nature,  and  refer  every  phenomenon  to  its  imme- 
diate antecedent  as  adequate  to  its  orderly  production. 
But  the  appeal  to  these  great  achievements  of  our  time 
is  itself  disorderly,  for  it  calls  upon  natural  science  to 
decide  a  question  which  lies  beyond  its  precinct. 
There  is  an  extraneous  force  of  will  which  acts  upon 
matter  in  derogation  of  laws  purely  physical,  or  alters 
the  balance  of  those  laws  among  themselves.  It  can 
be  neither  philosophical  nor  scientific  to  proclaim  the 
impossibility  of  miracle,  until  philosophy  or  science 
shall  have  determined  a  limit,  beyond  which  this  ex- 
traneous force  of  will,  so  familiar  to  our  experience, 
cannot  act  upon  or  deflect  the  natural  order. 

Next,  as  to  that  avidity  for  miracle,  which  is  sup- 
posed by  the  omniscient  Squire  to  account  for  the 
invention  of  it.  Let  it  be  granted,  for  argument's 
sake,  that  if  the  Gospel  had  been  intended  only  for 
the  Jews,  they  at  least  were  open  to  the  imputation 
of  a  biassing  and  blinding  appetite  for  signs  and  won- 
ders. But  scarcely  had  the  Christian  scheme  been 
established  among  the  Jews,  when  it  began  to  take 


22  "ROBERT  ELSMERE." 

root  among  the  Gentiles.  It  will  hardly  be  contended 
that  these  Gentiles,  who  detested  and  despised  the 
Jewish  race,  had  any  predisposition  to  receive  a  re- 
ligion at  their  hands  or  upon  their  authority.  Were 
they  then,  during  the  century  which  succeeded  our 
Lord's  birth,  so  swayed  by  a  devouring  thirst  for  the 
supernatural  as  to  account  for  the  early  reception, 
and  the  steady  if  not  rapid  growth,  of  the  Christian 
creed  among  them?  The  statement  of  the  Squire, 
which  carries  Robert  Elsmere,  is  that  the  preconcep- 
tion in  favor  of  miracles  at  the  period  "  governed  the 
work  of  all  men  of  all  schools."  *  A  most  gross  and 
palpable  exaggeration.  In  philosophy  the  Epicurean 
school  was  atheistic,  the  Stoic  school  was  ambigu- 
ously theistic,  and  doubt  nestled  in  the  Academy. 
Christianity  had  little  direct  contact  with  these 
schools,  but  they  acted  on  the  tone  of  thought,  in  a 
manner  not  favorable  but  adverse  to  the  preconcep- 
tion. 

Meantime  the  power  of  religion  was  in  decay.  The 
springs  of  it  in  the  general  mind  and  heart  were  weak- 
ened. A  deluge  of  profligacy  had  gone  far  to  destroy, 
at  Rome,  even  the  external  habit  of  public  worship  ; 
and  Horace,  himself  an  indifferentist,f  denounces  the 
neglect  and  squalor  of  the  temples ;  while  further 
on  we  have  the  stern  and  emphatic  testimony  of 
Juvenal : 

*  317.  t  Hor.  "  Od.,"  i.  34 ;  iii.  6. 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE:'  23 

"  Esse  aliquid  Manes,  et  subterranea  regna, 
Et  contum,  et  Stygio  ranas  in  gurgite  nigras, 
Nee  pueri  credunt,  nisi  qui  nondum  sere  lavantur."  * 

The  age  was  not  an  age  of  faith,  among  thinking  and 
ruling  classes,  either  in  natural  or  in  supernatural  re- 
ligion. There  had  been  indeed  a  wonderful  "  evan- 
gelical preparation  "  in  the  sway  of  the  Greek  lan- 
guage, in  the  unifying  power  of  the  Roman  State  and 
Empire,  and  in  the  utter  moral  failure  of  the  grand 
and  dominant  civilizations ;  but  not  in  any  virgin 
soil,  yearning  for  the  sun,  the  rain,  or  the  seed  of 
truth. 

But  the  Squire,  treading  in  the  footprints  of  Gib- 
bon's fifteenth  Chapter,  leaves  it  to  be  understood  that, 
in  the  appeal  to  the  supernatural,  the  new  religion 
enjoyed  an  exclusive  as  well  as  an  overpowering  ad- 
vantage ;  that  it  had  a  patent  for  miracle,  which  none 
could  infringe.  Surely  this  is  an  error  even  more 
gross  than  the  statement  already  cited  about  all  men 
of  all  schools.  The  supernatural  was  interwoven  with 
the  entire  fabric  of  the  religion  of  the  Roman  State, 
which,  if  weak  and  effete  as  a  religious  discipline,  was 
of  extraordinary  power  as  a  social  institution.  It 
stood,  if  not  on  faith  yet  on  nationality,  on  tradition, 
on  rich  endowments,  on  the  deeply  interested  attach- 
ment of  a  powerful  aristocracy,  and  on  that  policy  of 
wide  conciliation,  which  gave  to  so  many  creeds,  less 

*  "Sat.,"  ii.  150. 


j4  "  ROBER  T  ELSMKRI-:.  ' 

exclusive  than  the  Christian,  a  cause  common  with 
its  own. 

Looking  for  a  comprehensive  description  of  mira- 
cles, we  might  say  that  they  constitute  a  language  of 
heaven  embodied  in  material  signs,  by  which  com- 
munication is  established  between  the  Deity  and 
man,  outside  the  daily  course  of  nature  and  expe- 
rience. Distinctions  may  be  taken  between  one  kind 
of  miracle  and  another.  But  none  of  these  are  dis- 
tinctions in  principle.  Sometimes  they  are  alleged 
to  be  the  offspring  of  a  divine  power  committed  to 
the  hands  of  particular  men  ;  sometimes  they  are 
simple  manifestations  unconnected  with  human 
agency,  and  carrying  with  them  their  own  mean- 
ing, such  as  the  healings  in  Bethesda ;  sometimes 
they  are  a  system  of  events  and  of  phenomena  sub- 
ject to  authoritative  and  privileged  interpretation. 
Miracle,  portent,  prodigy,  and  sign  are  all  various 
forms  of  one  and  the  same  thing,  namely,  an  inva- 
sion of  the  known  and  common  natural  order  from 
the  side  of  the  supernatural.  In  the  last-named  case, 
there  is  an  expression  of  the  authorized  human  judg- 
ment upon  it,  while  in  the  earlier  ones  there  is  only 
a  special  appeal  to  it.  They  rest  upon  one  and  the 
same  basis.  We  may  assign  to  miracle  a  body  and  a 
soul.  It  has  for  its  body  something  accepted  as 
being  either  in  itself  or  in  its  incidents  outside  the 
known  processes  of  ordinary  nature,  and  for  its  soul 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  25 

the  alleged  message  which  in  one  shape  or  another  it 
helps  to  convey  from  the  Deity  to  man.  This  super- 
natural element,  as  such,  was  at  least  as  familiar  to 
the  Roman  heathenism,  as  to  the  Christian  scheme. 
It  was  indeed  more  highly  organized.  It  was  embod- 
ied in  the  regular  and  normal  practice  of  the  minis- 
ters of  religion,  and  especially,  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  pontifical  college,  it  was  the  regular  and  stand- 
ing business  of  the  augurs  to  observe,  report,  and  in- 
terpret the  supernatural  signs,  by  which  the  gods 
gave  reputed  instructions  to  men  outside  the  course 
of  nature.  Sometimes  it  was  by  strange  atmospheric 
phenomena ;  sometimes  by  physical  prodigies,  as 
when  a  woman  produced  a  snake,*  or  a  calf  was  born 
with  its  head  in  its  thigh  ;  f  whereupon,  says  Tacitus, 
secuta  harnspicum  interpretatio.  Sometimes  through 
events  only  preternatural  from  the  want  of  assignable 
cause,  as  when  the  statue  of  Julius  Caesar,  on  an  island 
in  the  Tiber,  turned  itself  round  from  west  to  east.:}: 
Sometimes  with  an  approximation  to  the  Christian 
signs  and  wonders,  as  when  Vespasian  removed  with 
spittle  the  tabes  oculorum,  and  restored  the  impotent 
hand.§  It  does  not  readily  appear  why  in  principle 
the  Romans,  who  had  the  supernatural  for  their  daily 
food  in  a  shape  sustained  by  the  unbroken  tradition 
of  their  country,  should  be  violently  attracted  by  the 

*  Tac.  "Ann.,"  xiv.  12.  t  Ibid.  xv.  47. 

+  Tac.  "  Hist.,"  i,  86.  §  Ibid.  iv.  81. 


26  "KOBERT  ELSMERE." 

mere  exhibition  of  it  from  a  despised  source,  and  in 
a  manner  less  formal,  less  organized,  and  less  known. 
In  one  important  way  we  know  the  accepted  super- 
natural of  the  Romans  operated  with  direct  and  telling 
power  against  the  Gospel.  Si  ccelum  stetit,  si  terra 
movit,  Christianas  ad  Uones.*  Or,  in  the  unsuspected 
language  of  Tacitus,  dum  latins  mctuitur,  trepidatione 
vulgi,  invalidus  quisque  obtriti.  When  the  portents 
were  unfavorable,  and  there  was  fear  of  their  exten- 
sion, the  weak  had  to  suffer  from  the  popular  alarms.f 

The  upshot  of  the  matter  then  appears  to  be  some- 
thing like  this. 

The  lowly  and  despised  preachers  of  Christian  por- 
tent were  confronted  everywhere  by  the  high-born 
and  accomplished  caste  sworn  to  the  service  of  the 
gods,  familiar  from  centuries  of  tradition  with  the 
supernatural,  and  supported  at  every  point  with  the 
whole  force  and  influence  of  civil  authority.  Nor 
has  there  ever  probably  been  a  case  of  a  contest  so 
unequal,  as  far  as  the  powers  of  this  world  are  con- 
cerned. Tainted  in  its  origin  by  its  connection  with 
the  detested  Judaism,  odious  to  the  prevailing  tone 
by  its  exclusiveness,  it  rested  originally  upon  the  tes- 
timony of  men  few,  poor,  and  ignorant,  and  for  a 
length  of  time  no  human  genius  was  enlisted  in  its 
service,  with  the  single  exception  of  Saint  Paul.  All 

*  Tertull.  "  Apol.,"  40.  t  Tac.  "  Ann.,"  xii.  43. 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  27 

that  we  of  this  nineteenth  century  know,  and  know 
so  well,  under  the  name  of  vested  interests,  is  insig- 
nificant compared  with  the  embattled  fortress  that 
these  humble  Christians  had  to  storm.  And  the 
Squire,  if  he  is  to  win  the  day  with  minds  less  ripe 
for  conversion  than  Robert  Elsmere,  must  produce 
some  other  suit  of  weapons  from  his  armory. 

With  him  I  now  part  company,  as  his  thorough- 
going negation  parts  company  with  the  hybrid  scheme 
of  Mrs.  Ward.  It  is  of  that  scheme  that  I  now  desire 
to  take  a  view  immediately  practical. 

In  a  concise  but  striking  notice  in  the  Times  *  it  is 
placed  in  the  category  of  "  clever  attacks  upon  re- 
vealed religion."  It  certainly  offers  us  a  substitute 
for  revealed  religion  ;  and  possibly  the  thought  of  the 
book  might  be  indicated  in  these  words :  "  The 
Christianity  accepted  in  England  is  a  good  thing ; 
but  come  with  me,  and  I  will  show  you  a  better." 

It  may,  I  think,  be  fairly  described  as  a  devout 
attempt,  made  in  good  faith,  to  simplify  the  difficult 
mission  of  religion  in  the  world  by  discarding  the 
supposed  lumber  of  the  Christian  theology,  while  re- 
taining and  applying,  in  their  undiminished  breadth 
of  scope,  the  whole  personal,  social,  and  spiritual 
morality  which  has  now,  as  matter  of  fact,  entered 
into  the  patrimony  of  Christendom  ;  and,  since  Chris- 

*  Times,  April  7,  1888. 


28  "ROBERT  ELSAfERE." 

tcndom  is  the  dominant  power  of  the  world,  into  the 
patrimony  of  the  race.  It  is  impossible  indeed  to 
conceive  a  more  religious  life  than  the  later  life  of 
Robert  Elsmere,  in  his  sense  of  the  word  religion. 
And  that  sense  is  far  above  the  sense  in  which  re- 
ligion is  held,  or  practically  applied,  by  great  multi- 
tudes of  Christians.  It  is,  however,  a  new  form  of 
religion.  The  question  is,  can  it  be  actually  and 
beneficially  substituted  for  the  old  one  ?  It  abolishes 
of  course  the  whole  authority  of  Scripture.  It  abol- 
ishes also  Church,  priesthood  or  ministry,  sacraments, 
and  the  whole  established  machinery  which  trains  the 
Christian  as  a  member  of  a  religious  society.  These 
have  been  regarded  by  fifty  generations  of  men  as 
wings  of  the  soul.  It  is  still  required  by  Mrs.  Ward 
to  fly,  and  to  fly  as  high  as  ever  ;  but  it  is  to  fly  with- 
out wings.  For  baptism,  we  have  a  badge  of  silver, 
and  inscription  in  a  book.*  For  the  Eucharist  there 
is  at  an  ordinary  meal  a  recital  of  the  fragment, 
"  This  do  in  remembrance  of  Me."  The  children 
respond,  "  Jesus,  we  remember  Thee  always."  It  is 
hard  to  say  that  prayer  is  retained.  In  the  Elgood 
Street  service  "  it  is  rather  an  act  of  adoration  and 

• 

faith,  than  a  prayer  properly  so  called, "f  and  it  ap- 
pears that  memory  and  trust  are  the  instruments  on 
which  the  individual  is  to  depend,  for  maintaining 

*  577-  t  580- 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  29 

his  communion  with  God.  It  would  be  curious  to 
know  how  the  New  Brotherhood  is  to  deal  with  the 
great  mystery  of  marriage,  perhaps  the  truest  touch- 
stone of  religious  revolution. 

It  must  be  obvious  to  every  reader  that  in  the 
great  duel  between  the  old  faith  and  the  new,  as  it  is 
fought  in  "  Robert  Elsmere,"  there  is  a  great  inequal- 
ity in  the  distribution  of  the  arms.  Reasoning  is  the 
weapon  of  the  new  scheme ;  emotion  the  sole  re- 
source of  the  old.  Neither  Catherine  nor  Newcome 
have  a  word  to  say  beyond  the  expression  of  feeling ; 
and  it  is  when  he  has  adopted  the  negative  side  that 
the  hero  himself  is  fully  introduced  to  the  faculty  of 
argument.  This  is  a  singular  arrangement,  especially 
in  the  case  of  a  writer  who  takes  a  generous  view  of 
the  Christianity  that  she  only  desires  to  supplant  by 
an  improved  device.  The  explanation  may  be  sim- 
ple. There  are  abundant  signs  in  the  book  that  the 
negative  speculatists  have  been  consulted  if  not  ran- 
sacked ;  but  there  is  nowhere  a  sign  that  the  author- 
ess has  made  herself  acquainted  with  the  Christian 
apologists,  old  or  recent ;  or  has  weighed  the  evi- 
dences derivable  from  the  Christian  history ;  or  has 
taken  measure  of  the  relation  in  which  the  doctrines 
of  grace  have  historically  stood  to  the  production  of 
the  noblest,  purest,  and  greatest  characters  of  the 
Christian  ages.  If  such  be  the  case,  she  has  skipped 
lightly  (to  put  it  no  higher)  over  vast  mental  spaces 


30  "ROBERT  ELSAfERE." 

of  literature  and  learning  relevant  to  the  case,  and  has 
given  sentence  in  the  cause  without  hearing  the  evi- 
dence. 

It  might  perhaps  be  not  unjust  to  make  a  retort 
upon  the  authoress,  and  say  that  while  she  believes 
herself  simply  to  be  yielding  obedience  to  reason,  her 
movement  is  in  reality  impelled  by  bias.  We  have 
been  born  into  an  age  when,  in  the  circles  of  literature 
and  science,  there  is  a  strong  anti-dogmatic  leaning,  a 
prejudice  which  may  largely  intercept  the  action  of 
judgment.  Partly  because  belief  has  its  superstitions, 
and  the  detection  of  these  superstitions  opens  the 
fabric  to  attack,  like  a  breach  in  the  wall  of  a  fortress 
when  at  a  given  point  it  has  been  stuffed  with  un- 
sound material.  Partly  because  the  rapidity  of 
the  movement  of  the  time  predisposes  the  mind  to 
novelty.  Partly  because  the  multiplication  of  enjoy- 
ments, through  the  progress  of  commerce  and  inven- 
tion, enhances  the  materialism  of  life,  strengthens  by 
the  forces  of  habit  the  hold  of  the  seen  world  upon 
us,  and  leaves  less  both  of  brain-power  and  of  heart- 
power  available  for  the  unseen.  Enormous  accretion 
of  wealth  is  no  more  deprived  of  its  sting  now,  than 
it  was  when  Saint  Paul  penned  his  profoundly  pene- 
trating admonition  to  Timothy.*  And  when,  under 
the  present  conditions,  it  happens  that  the  environ- 

*  i  Tim.  iv.  9. 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."     .  31 

ment  of  personal  association  represents  either  concen- 
trated hostility  or  hopeless  diversity  in  religion,  there 
may  be  hardly  a  chance  for  firm  and  measured  belief. 
What  we  find  to  be  troublesome,  yet  from  some  in- 
ward protest  are  not  prepared  wholly  to  reject,  we 
like  to  simplify  and  reduce ;  and  the  instances  of 
good  and  devoted  men  who  are  averse  to  dogma, 
more  frequent  than  usual  in  this  age,  are  powerful  to 
persuade  us  that  in  lightening  the  cargo  we  are  really 
securing  the  safe  voyage  of  the  ship.  "  About  dogma 
we  hear  dispute,  but  the  laws  of  high  social  morality  no 
speculation  is  disposed  to  question.  Why  not  get  rid 
of  the  disputable,  and  concentrate  all  our  strength  on 
grasping  the  undisputed?"  We  may  by  a  little 
wresting  quote  high  authority  for  this  recommenda- 
tion. "  Whereto  we  have  already  attained  ....  let 

us  mind  the  same  thing And  if  in  anything  ye 

be  otherwise  minded,  God  shall  reveal  even  this  unto 
you."  *  It  is  not  difficult  to  conceive  how,  under  the 
action  of  causes  with  which  the  time  abounds,  pure 
and  lofty  minds,  wholly  guiltless  of  the  intention  to 
impair  or  lower  the  motive  forces  of  Christianity, 
may  be  led  .into  the  snare,  and  may  even  conceive  a 
process  in  itself  destructive  to  be,  on  the  contrary, 
conservative  and  reparatory. 

But  it  is  a  snare  none  the  less.    And  first  let  us 

*  Phil.  iii.  15,  16. 


32  "ROBERT  ELSMERE." 

recollect,  when  we  speak  of  renouncing  Christian 
dogma,  what  it  is  that  we  mean.  The  germ  of  it  as 
a  system  lies  in  the  formula,  "  Baptizing  them  in  the 
name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost."*  This  was  speedily  developed  into  the  sub- 
stance of  the  Apostles'  Creed  :  the  Creed  which  forms 
our  confession  of  individual  faith,  in  baptism  and  on 
the  bed  of  death.  Now  belief  in  God,  which  forms 
(so  to  speak)  the  first  great  limb  of  the  Creed,  is 
strictly  a  dogma,  and  is  on  no  account,  according  to 
Mrs.  Ward,  to  be  surrendered.  But  the  second  and 
greatest  portion  of  the  Creed  contains  twelve  proposi- 
tions, of  which  nine  are  matters  of  fact,  and  the  whole 
twelve  have  for  their  office  the  setting  forth  to  us  of 
a  Personage,  to  whom  a  great  dispensation  has  been 
committed.  The  third  division  of  the  Creed  is  more 
dogmatic,  but  it  is  bound  down  like  the  second  to 
earth  and  fact  by  the  article  of  the  Church,  a  visible 
and  palpable  institution.  The  principal  purely  dog- 
matic part  of  this  great  document  is  the  part  which 
is  to  be  retained.  And  we,  who  accept  the  Christian 
story,  are  entitled  to  say,  that  to  extrude  from  a  his 
tory,  tied  to  strictly  human  facts,  that  by  which  they 
become  a  standing  channel  of  organic  connection  be- 
tween Deity  and  humanity,  is  not  presumptively  a 
very  hopeful  mode  of  strengthening  our  belief  in  God, 

*  St.  Matt,  jucviii.  19. 


'ROBERT  ELSMERE." 


33 


thus  deprived  of  its  props  and  accessories.  The  chasm 
between  deity  and  the  human  soul,  over  which  the 
scheme  of  Redemption  has  thrown  a  bridge,  again 
yawns  beneath  our  feet,  in  all  its  breadth  and  depth. 

Although  the  Divinity  of  Christ  is  not  put  promi- 
nently forward  in  this  book,  but  rather  the  broader 
objection  to  supernatural  manifestations,  yet  it  will 
be  found  to  be  the  real  hinge  of  the  entire  question. 
For,  if  Christ  be  truly  God,  few  will  deny  that  the 
exceptional  incidents,  which  follow  in  the  train  of 
His  appearance  upon  earth,  raise,  in  substance,  no 
new  difficulty.  Is  it  true,  then,  that  Christians  have 
been  so  divided  on  this  subject  as  to  promise  us  a  re- 
turn of  peace  and  progress  by  its  elimination  ? 

To  answer  this  question  rightly,  we  must  not  take 
the  humor  of  this  or  that  particular  time  or  country, 
but  must  regard  the  Christian  system  in  its  whole 
extension,  and  its  whole  duration.  So  regarding  it, 
we  shall  find  that  the  assertion,  far  from  being  true, 
is  glaringly  untrue.  The  truth  in  rude  outline  is 
surely  this.  That  when  the  Gospel  went  out  into  the 
world,  the  greatest  of  all  the  groups  of  controversies, 
which  progressively  arose  within  its  borders,  was  that 
which  concerned  the  true  nature  of  the  Object  of 
worship.  That  these  controversies  ran  through  the 
most  important  shapes,  which  have  been  known  to 
the  professing  Church  of  later  years,  and  through 
many  more.  That  they  rose,  especially  in  the  fourth 


34  "  ROBERT  ELSM ERE." 

century,  to  such  a  height,  amidst  the  conflict  of 
councils,  popes,  and  theologians,  that  the  private 
Christian  was  too  often  like  the  dove  wandering  over 
the  waters,  and  seeking  in  vain  a  resting-place  for  the 
sole  of  his  foot.  That  the  whole  mind  and  heart  of 
the  Church  were  given,  in  their  whole  strength  and 
through  a  lengthened  period,  to  find  some  solution 
of  these  controversies.  That  many  generations  passed 
before  Arianism  wholly  ceased  to  be  the  basis  of 
Christian  profession  in  spots  or  sections  of  Christen- 
dom, but  not  so  long  before  the  central  thought  of 
the  body  as  a  whole  had  come  to  be  fixed  in  the  form 
of  what  has  ever  since,  and  now  for  over  fourteen 
hundred  years,  been  known  as  the  orthodox  belief. 
The  authority  of  this  tradition,  based  upon  the  Scrip- 
tures, has  through  all  that  period  been  upheld  at  the 
highest  point  to  which  a  marvellous  continuity  and 
universality  could  raise  it.  It  was  not  impeached  by 
the  questioning  mind  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The 
scientific  revolution,  which  opened  to  us  the  antipodes 
and  the  solar  system,  did  not  shake  it.  The  more 
subtle  dangers  of  the  Renaissance  were  dangers  to 
Christianity  as  a  whole,  but  not  to  this  great  element 
of  Christianity  as  a  part.  And  when  the  terrible 
struggles  of  the  Reformation  stirred  every  coarse 
human  passion  as  well  as  every  fond  religious  inter- 
est into  fury,  even  then  the  Nicene  belief,  as  Moliler 
in  his  "  Symbolik  "  has  so  well  observed,  sat  undis- 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  35 

turbed  in  a  region  elevated  above  the  controversies 
of  the  time  ;  which  only  touched  it  at  points  so  ex- 
ceptional, and  comparatively  so  obscure,  as  not  ap- 
preciably to  qualify  its  majestic  authority.  A  Chris- 
tianity without  Christ  is  no  Christianity ;  and  a  Christ 
not  divine  is  one  other  than  the  Christ  on  whom  the 
souls  of  Christians  have  habitually  fed.  What  virtue, 
what  piety,  have  existed  outside  of  Christianity,  is  a 
question  totally  distinct.  But  to  hold  that,  since  the 
great  controversy  of  the  early  time  was  wound  up  at 
Chalcedon,  the  question  of  our  Lord's  Divinity  (which 
draws  after  it  all  that  Robert  Elsmere  would  excide), 
has  generated  the  storms  of  the  Christian  atmosphere, 
would  be  simply  an  historical  untruth.  How  then  is 
the  work  of  peace  to  be  promoted  by  the  excision 
from  our  creed  of  that  central  truth  on  which  we  are 
generally  agreed  ? 

The  onward  movement  of  negation  in  the  present 
day  has  presented  perhaps  no  more  instructive  feat- 
ure than  this,  that  the  Unitarian  persuasion  has,  in 
this  country  at  least,  by  no  means  thriven  upon  it. 
It  might  have  been  thought  that,  in  the  process  of  dilap- 
idation, here  would  have  been  a  point  at  which  the  re- 
ceding tide  of  belief  would  have  rested  at  any  rate 
for  a  while.  But  instead  of  this,  we  are  informed 
that  the  numbers  of  professed  Unitarians  have  in. 
creased  less  than  those  of  other  communions,  and  less 
than  the  natural  growth  of  the  population.  And  we 


36  "  ROBERT  ELSMERE." 

find  Mrs.  Ward  herself  describing  the  old  Unitarian 
scheme  *  as  one  wholly  destitute  of  logic  ;  but  in 
what  respect  she  improves  upon  it  I  have  not  yet  per- 
ceived. 

In  order  to  invest  any  particular  propagandism 
with  a  show  of  presumptive  title  to  our  acceptance, 
its  author  should  be  able  to  refer  it  to  some  standard 
of  appeal  which  will  show  that  it  has  foundations 
otherwise  than  in  mere  private  judgment  or  active 
imagination.  The  books  of  the  New  Testament  I 
understand  to  be,  for  Mrs.  Ward,  of  no  value  except 
for  the  moral  precepts  they  contain.  Still  less  may 
we  invoke  the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament,  where 
the  ethical  picture  is  more  chequered.  She  finds  no 
spell  in  the  great  moral  miracle  (so  to  phrase  it)  of 
the  Psalms ;  nor  in  the  marvellous  propaideia  of  the 
Jewish  history,  so  strikingly  confirmed  by  recent  re- 
search ;  in  the  Levitical  law,  the  prophetic  teaching, 
the  entire  dispensation  of  temporal  promise  and  of 
religious  worship  and  instruction,  by  which  the 
Hebrew  race  was  kept  in  social  isolation  through 
fifteen  centuries,  as  a  cradle  for  the  Redeemer  that 
was  to  come.  She  is  not  awakened  by  the  Christian 
more  than  by  the  Jewish  history.  No  way  to  her 
assent  is  opened  by  the  great  victory  of  the  world's 
babes  and  striplings  over  its  philosophers  and  schol- 

•417. 


'ROBERT  ELSMERE." 


37 


ars,  and  the  serried  array  of  emperors,  aristocracies, 
and  statesmen,  with  their  elaborate  apparatus  of  or- 
ganized institutions.  All  this  cogent  mass  of  human 
testimony  is  rendered,  I  admit,  on  behalf  not  of  a 
vague  and  arbitrary  severance  of  Christian  morals 
from  the  roots  which  have  produced  them,  but  of 
what  we  term  the  Christian  dogma,  that  is  to  say,  of 
belief  in  God  supplemented  and  brought  home  by  the 
great  fact  of  Redemption,  and  of  the  provision  made 
through  the  Church  of  Christ  for  the  perpetual  con- 
servation and  application  of  its  living  powers. 

And  it  must  be  observed  that,  in  adducing  this 
evidence  from  consent,  I  make  no  assumption  and 
beg  no  question  as  between  reformed  and  unreformed 
Christianity.  By  any  such  preferential  treatment  of 
a  part,  I  should  weaken  the  authority  and  betray 
the  sacred  cause  of  the  whole.  All  that  can  be 
said  or  shown  of  the  corruptions  that  have  gathered 
round  the  central  scheme,  of  the  failure  rightly  to 
divide  the  word  of  truth,  of  the  sin  and  shame  that 
in  a  hundred  forms  have  belied  its  profession,  affords 
only  new  proof  of  the  imperishable  vitality  that  has 
borne  so  much  disease,  of  the  buoyancy  of  the  ark  on 
whose  hull  has  grown  so  much  of  excrescence  with- 
out arresting  its  course  through  the  waters.  And 
again,  the  concord  of  Christians  ever  since  the  great 
adjudication  of  the  fifth  century  on  the  central  truth 
has  acquired  an  addition  of  weight  almost  incalcu- 


38  ' '  KOBER  T  ELSMERE." 

lablc,  from  the  fact  they  have  differed  so  sharply  upon 
many  of  the  propositions  that  are  grouped  around  it. 
Without  doubt  human  testimony  is  to  be  duly  and 
strictly  sifted,  and  every  defect  in  its  quantity  or 
quality  is  to  be  recorded  in  the  shape  of  a  deduction 
from  its  weight.  But  as  there  is  no  proceeding  more 
irreverent,  so  there  is  none  more  strictly  irrational, 
than  its  wholesale  depreciation.  Such  depreciation 
is  an  infallible  note  of  shallow  and  careless  thinking, 
for  it  very  generally  implies  an  exaggerated  and 
almost  ludicrous  estimate  of  the  capacity  and  per- 
formances of  the  present  generation,  as  compared  with 
those  which  have  preceded  it.  Judges  in  our  own 
cause,  pleaders  with  nobody  to  reply,  we  take  ample 
note  of  every  comparative  advantage  we  possess,  but 
forget  to  register  deteriorating  and  disqualifying  in- 
fluences. Not  less  commonly  is  our  offence  avenged 
by  our  own  inconsistency.  The  solemn  voice  of  the 
ages,  the  securus  judicat  orbis  terrarum,  amounts  sim- 
ply to  zero  for  Robert  Elsmere.  Yet  he  can  abso- 
lutely surrender  to  his  own  selected  pope  the  guid- 
ance of  his  understanding  ;  and  when  he  asks  himself, 
at  the  funeral  in  the  third  volume,  whether  the  more 
modest,  that  is,  the  emasculated,  form  of  human  hope 
in  the  presence  of  the  Eternal,  may  not  be  "  as  real, 
as  sustaining,"  as  the  old  one,  his  reply  to  this  great 
question  is — "  Let  Grey's  trust  answer  for  me."  * 


'  ROBERT  ELSMERE." 


39 


This  great  buttress  of  the  old  religion,  whatever  its 
value,  is  then  withdrawn  from  the  new  one,  which 

starts  like 

"  a  painted  ship 
Upon  a  painted  ocean," 

accredited  by  a  successful  venture  among  the  Lon- 
don artisans,  who  differ  (so  we  are  told)  not  only  from 
the  classes  above  and  beneath  them  in  the  metropolis, 
as  to  their  disposition  to  accept  the  Christian  doc- 
trines, but  from  their  own  brethren  in  the  north.*  It 
is  not,  therefore,  on  testimony  that  the  Elsmere  gos- 
pel takes  its  stand.  Does  it,  then,  stand  upon  phi- 
losophy, upon  inherent  beauty  and  fitness,  as  com- 
pared with  the  scheme  which  it  dismembers  and  then 
professes  to  replace  ?  Again,  be  it  borne  in  mind 
that  the  essence  of  the  proposal  is  to  banish  the  su- 
pernatural idea  and  character  of  our  Lord,  but  to  im- 
bibe and  assimilate  His  moral  teachings. 

From  my  antiquated  point  of  view,  this  is  simply 
to  bark  the  tree,  and  then,  as  the  death  which  ensues 
is  not  immediate,  to  point  out  with  satisfaction  on 
the  instant  that  it  still  waves  living  branches  in  the 
wind.  We  have  before  us  a  huge  larcenous  appro- 
priation, by  the  modern  schemes,  of  goods  which  do 
not  belong  to  them.  They  carry  peacocks'  feathers, 
which  adorn  them  for  a  time,  and  which  they  cannot 

*  472,  473- 


40  "ROBERT  ELSMERE." 

reproduce.  Let  us  endeavor  to  learn  whether  these 
broad  assumptions,  which  flow  out  of  the  historic  tes- 
timony of  the  Christian  ages,  are  also  prompted  and 
sustained  by  the  reason  of  the  case. 

It  is  sometimes  possible  to  trace  peculiar  and 
marked  types  of  human  character  with  considerable 
precision  to  their  causes.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
Spartan  type  of  character,  in  its  relation  to  the  legis- 
lation attributed  to  Lycurgus.  Or  take,  again,  the 
Jewish  type,  such  as  it  is  presented  to  us  both  by 
the  ancient  and  the  later  history,  in  its  relation  to  the 
Mosaic  law  and  institutions.  It  would  surely  have 
been  a  violent  paradox,  in  either  of  these  cases,  to 
propose  the  abolition  of  the  law,  and  to  assert  at  the 
same  time  that  the  character  would  continue  to  be 
exhibited,  not  only  sporadically  and  for  a  time,  but 
normally  and  in  permanence. 

These  were  restricted,  almost  tribal,  systems. 
Christianity,  though  by  no  means  less  peculiar,  was 
diffusive.  It  both  produced  a  type  of  character 
wholly  new  to  the  Roman  world,  and  it  funda- 
mentally altered  the  laws  and  institutions,  the  tone, 
temper,  and  tradition  of  that  world.  For  example, 
it  changed  profoundly  the  relation  of  the  poor  to  the 
rich,  and  the  almost  forgotten  obligations  of  the  rich 
to  the  poor.  It  abolished  slavery,  abolished  human 
sacrifice,  abolished  gladiatorial  shows,  and  a  multitude 
of  other  horrors.  It  restored  the  position  of  woman 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  41 

in  society.  It  proscribed  polygamy ;  and  put  down 
divorce,  absolutely  in  the  West,  though  not  abso- 
lutely in  the  East.  It  made  peace,  instead  of  war, 
the  normal  and  presumed  relation  between  human 
societies.  It  exhibited  life  as  a  discipline  everywhere 
and  in  all  its  parts,  and  changed  essentially  the  place 
and  function  of  suffering  in  human  experience.  Ac- 
cepting the  ancient  morality  as  far  as  it  went,  it  not 
only  enlarged  but  transfigured  its  teaching,  by  the 
laws  of  humility  and  qf  forgiveness,  and  by  a  law  of 
purity  perhaps  even  more  new  and  strange  than  these. 
Let  it  be  understood  that  I  speak  throughout  not  of 
such  older  religion  as  may  have  subsisted  in  the  lowly 
and  unobserved  places  of  human  life,  but  of  what 
stamped  the  character  of  its  strongholds ;  of  the  ele- 
ments which  made  up  the  main  and  central  currents 
of  thought,  action,  and  influence,  in  those  places,  and 
in  those  classes,  which  drew  the  rest  of  the  world  in 
their  train.  All  this  was  not  the  work  of  a  day,  but 
it  was  the  work  of  powers  and  principles  which  per- 
sistently asserted  themselves  in  despite  of  controversy, 
of  infirmity,  and  of  corruption  in  every  form ;  which 
reconstituted  in  life  and  vigor  a  society  found  in  de- 
cadence ;  which  by  degrees  came  to  pervade  the  very 
air  we  breathe ;  and  which  eventually  have  beyond 
all  dispute  made  Christendom  the  dominant  portion, 
and  Christianity  the  ruling  power,  of  the  world.  And 
all  this  has  been  done,  not  by  eclectic  and  arbitrary 


42  "ROBERT  ELSMEh 

fancies,  but  by  the  creed  of  the  Homoousian,  in  which 
the  philosophy  of  modern  times  sometimes  appears 
to  find  a  favorite  theme  of  ridicule.  But  it  is  not 
less  material  to  observe  that  the  whole  fabric,  social 
as  well  as  personal,  rests  on  the  new  type  of  individ- 
ual character  which  the  Gospel  brought  into  life  and 
action :  enriched  and  completed  without  doubt  from 
collateral  sources  which  made  part  of  the  "  Evangel- 
ical preparation,"  but  in  its  central  essence  due  en- 
tirely to  the  dispensation,  which  had  been  founded 
and  wrought  out  in  the  land  of  Judea,  and  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Hebrew  race.  What  right  have  we  to  de- 
tach, or  to  suppose  we  can  detach,  this  type  of  per- 
sonal character  from  the  causes  out  of  which  as  mat- 
ter of  history  it  has  grown,  and  to  assume  that 
without  its  roots  it  will  thrive  as  well  as  with  them  ? 
For  Mrs.  Ward  is  so  firmly  convinced,  and  so  affec- 
tionately sensible,  of  the  exquisite  excellence  of  the 
Christian  type  that  she  will  permit  no  abatement 
from  it,  though  she  thinks  it  can  be  cast  in  a  mould 
which  is  human  as  well  as,  nay,  better  than,  in  one 
which  is  divine.  Nor  is  she  the  first  person  who,  in 
renouncing  the  Christian  tradition,  has  reserved  her 
allegiance  to  Christian  morals  and  even  sought  to 
raise  their  standard.  We  have,  for  instance,  in 
America,  not  a  person  only,  but  a  society,  which, 
while  trampling  on  the  Divinity  and  Incarnation  of 
Christ,  not  only  accepts  His  rule  of  life,  but  pushes 


ROBERT  ELSMERE." 


43 


evangelical  counsels  into  absolute  precepts,  and  in- 
sists upon  them  as  the  rule  of  life  for  all  who  seek, 
instead  of  abiding  in  the  "  lower  floor  churches,"  to  be 
Christians  indeed.  "  The  fundamental  principles  of 
Shakerism  "  are  "  virgin  purity,  non-resistance,  peace, 
equality  of  inheritance,  and  unspottedness  from  the 
world."  *  The  evidence  of  travellers  appears  to  show 
that  the  ideal  of  these  projectors  has  to  a  certain  de- 
gree been  realized ;  nor  can  we  know  for  how  many 
years  an  eccentric  movement  of  this  kind  will  endure 
the  test  of  time  without  palpably  giving  way.  The 
power  of  environment,  and  the  range  of  idiosyncrasy, 
suffice  to  generate,  especially  in  dislocating  times,  all 
sorts  of  abnormal  combinations,  which  subsist,  in  a 
large  degree,  upon  forces  not  their  own,  and  so  im- 
pose themselves,  with  a  show  of  authority,  upon  the 
world. 

Let  us  return  to  the  point.  The  Christian  type  is 
the  product  and  the  property  of  the  Christian  scheme. 
No,  says  the  objector,  the  improvements  which  we 
witness  are  the  offspring  of  civilization.  It  might  be 
a  sufficient  answer  to  point  out  that  the  civilization 
before  and  around  us  is  a  Christian  civilization.  What 
civilization  could  do  without  Christianity  for  the 
greatest  races  of  mankind,  we  know  already.  Philos- 

*The  quotation  is  from  a  preface  to  "Shaker  Sermons," 
by  H.  L.  Eads,  Bishop  of  South  Union,  Kentucky.  Fourth 
edition,  1887. 


44  "ROBERT  ELSMERE" 

ophy  and  art,  creative  genius  and  practical  energy, 
had  their  turn  before  the  Advent ;  and  we  can  register 
the  results.  I  do  not  say  that  the  great  Greek  and 
Roman  ages  lost — perhaps  even  they  improved — the 
ethics  of  meum  and  tuutn,  in  the  interests  of  the  lei- 
sured and  favored  classes  of  society,  as  compared  with 
what  those  ethics  had  been  in  archaic  times.  But 
they  lost  the  hold  which  some  earlier  races  within 
their  sphere  had  had  of  the  future  life.  They  de- 
graded, and  that  immeasurably,  the  position  of 
woman.  They  effaced  from  the  world  the  law  of 
purity.  They  even  carried  indulgence  to  a  worse 
than  bestial  type ;  and  they  gloried  in  the  achieve- 
ment.* Duty  and  religion,  in  the  governing  classes 
and  the  governing  places,  were  absolutely  torn  asun- 
der ;  and  self-will  and  self-worship  were  established 
as  the  unquestioned  rule  of  life.  It  is  yet  more  im- 
portant to  observe  that  the  very  qualities  which  are 
commended  in  the  Beatitudes,  and  elsewhere  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  which  form  the  base  of 
the  character  specifically  Christian,  were  for  the  Greek 
and  the  Roman  mind  the  objects  of  contempt.  From 
the  history  of  all  that  has  lain  within  the  reach  of  the 
great  Mediterranean  basin,  not  a  tittle  of  encourage- 
ment can  be  drawn  for  the  ideas  of  those,  who  would 
surrender  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  and  yet  retain 
its  moral  and  spiritual  fruits. 

*  See  /or  instance  the  'Epurec  of  Lucian. 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  45. 

Does  then  that  severance,  unsustained  by  authority 
or  by  experience,  commend  itself  at  any  single  point 
by  an  improved  conformity  with  purely  abstract  prin- 
ciples of  philosophy  ?  and  is  the  new  system  better 
adapted  to  the  condition  and  the  needs  of  human  na- 
ture, than  the  old  ?  Does  it  better  correspond  with 
what  an  enlightened  reason  would  dictate  as  the  best 
provision  for  those  needs  ?  Does  it  mitigate,  or  does 
it  enhance,  the  undoubted  difficulties  of  belief?  And 
if  the  answer  must  be  given  in  the  negative  to  both 
these  inquiries,  how  are  we  to  account  for  the  strange 
phenomenon  which  exhibits  to  us  persons  sincerely, 
nay  painfully,  desirous  of  seeing  Divine  government 
more  and  more  accepted  in  the  world,  yet  enthusias- 
tically busied  in  cutting  away  the  best  among  the 
props,  by  which  that  government  has  been  heretofore 
sustained  ? 

As  regards  the  first  of  these  three  questions,  it  is  to 
be  observed  that,  while  the  older  religions  made  free 
use  of  prodigy  and  portent,  they  employed  these  in- 
struments for  political  rather  than  moral  purposes; 
and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  sum  total  of  such 
action  tended  to  raise  the  standard  of  life  and  thought. 
The  general  upshot  was  that  the  individual  soul  felt 
itself  very  far  from  God.  Our  bedimmed  eye  could 
not  perceive  His  purity ;  and  our  puny  reach  could 
not  find  touch  of  His  vastness.  By  the  scheme  of 
Redemption,  this  sense  of  distance  was  removed. 


46  "ROBERT  ELSMERE." 

The  divine  perfections  were  reflected  through  the 
medium  of  a  perfect  humanity,  and  were  thus  made 
near,  familiar,  and  liable  to  love.  The  great  all-per- 
vading law  of  human  sympathy  became  directly  avail- 
able for  religion,  and  in  linking  us  to  the  Divine  Hu- 
manity, linked  us  by  the  same  act  to  God.  And  this 
not  for  rare  and  exceptional  souls  alone,  but  for  the 
common  order  of  mankind.  The  direct  contact,  the 
interior  personal  communion  of  the  individual  with 
God,  was  re-established :  for  human  faculties,  in  their 
normal  action,  could  now  appreciate,  and  approach 
to,  what  had  previously  been  inappreciable  and  un- 
approachable. Surely  the  system  I  have  thus  rudely 
exhibited  was  ideally  a  great  philosophy,  as  well  as 
practically  an  immeasurable  boon.  To  strike  out  the 
redemptive  clauses  from  the  scheme  is  to  erase  the 
very  feature  by  which  it  essentially  differed  from  all 
other  schemes;  and  to  substitute  a  didactic  exhibi- 
tion of  superior  morality,  with  the  rays  of  an  example 
in  the  preterite  tense,  set  by  a  dead  man  in  Judea,  for 
that  scheme  of  living  forces,  by  which  the  powers  of 
a  living  Saviour's  humanity  are  daily  and  hourly 
given  to  man,  under  a  charter  which  expires  only 
with  the  world  itself.  Is  it  possible  here  to  discern, 
either  from  an  ideal  or  from  a  practical  point  of  view, 
anything  but  depletion  and  impoverishment,  and  the 
substitution  of  a  spectral  for  a  living  form  ? 

If  we  proceed  to  the  second  question,  the  spec- 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  4; 

tacle,  as  it  presents  itself  to  me,  is  stranger  still.  Al- 
though we  know  that  James  Mill,  arrested  by  the 
strong  hand  of  Bishop  Butler,  halted  rather  than  rested 
for  a  while  in  theism  on  his  progress  towards  general 
negation,  yet  his  case  does  not  supply,  nor  can  we 
draw  from  other  sources,  any  reason  to  regard  such  a 
position  as  one  which  can  be  largely  and  permanently 
held  against  that  relentless  force  of  logic,  which  is 
ever  silently  at  work  to  assert  and  to  avenge  itself. 
The  theist  is  confronted,  with  no  breakwater  between, 
by  the  awful  problem  of  moral  evil,  by  the  mystery 
of  pain,  by  the  apparent  anomalies  of  waste  and  of 
caprice  on  the  face  of  creation ;  and  not  least  of  all 
by  the  fact  that,  while  the  moral  government  of  the 
world  is  founded  on  the  free  agency  of  man,  there  are 
in  multitudes  of  cases  environing  circumstances  inde- 
pendent of  his  will  which  seem  to  deprive  that  agency, 
called  free,  of  any  operative  power  adequate  to  con- 
tend against  them.  In  this  bewildered  state  of 
things,  in  this  great  enigma  of  the  world,  "  Who  is 
this  that  cometh  from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments 
from  Bozrah?  .  .  .  Wherefore  art  thou  red  in  thine 
apparel,  and  thy  garments  like  him  that  treadeth  in 
the  winefat?  "*  There  has  come  upon  the  scene  the 
figure  of  a  Redeemer,  human  and  divine.  Let  it  be 
granted  that  the  Incarnation  is  a  marvel  wholly  be- 

*  Is.  Ixiii.  i,  2. 


48  "ROBERT  ELSMERE." 

yond  our  reach,  and  that  the  miracle  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion to-day  gives  serious  trouble  to  fastidious  intel- 
lects. But  the  difficulties  of  a  baffled  understanding, 
lying  everywhere  around  us  in  daily  experience,  are 
to  be  expected  from  its  limitations;  not  so  the  shocks 
encountered  by  the  moral  sense.  Even  if  the  Chris- 
tian scheme  slightly  lengthened  the  immeasurable 
catalogue  of  the  first,  this  is  dust  in  the  balance  com- 
pared with  the  relief  it  furnishes  to  the  second ;  in 
supplying  the  most  powerful  remedial  agency  ever 
known,  in  teaching  how  pain  may  be  made  a  helper, 
and  evil  transmuted  into  good ;  and  in  opening 
clearly  the  vision  of  another  world,  in  which  we  are 
taught  to  look  for  yet  larger  counsels  of  the  Almighty 
wisdom.  To  take  away,  then,  the  agency  so  beneficent, 
which  has  so  softened  and  reduced  the  moral  prob- 
lems that  lie  thickly  spread  around  us,  and  to  leave  us 
face  to  face  with  them  in  all  their  original  rigor,  is  to 
enhance  and  not  to  mitigate  the  difficulties  of  belief. 
Lastly,  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  why  those 
who  prefer  the  Pagan  ideal,  or  who  cannot  lay  hold 
on  the  future  world,  or  who  labor  under  still  greater 
disadvantages,  should  put  aside  as  a  whole  the  Gospel 
of  God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  But  Mrs.  Ward  is  none 
of  these;  and  it  is  far  harder  to  comprehend  the 
mental  attitude,  or  the  mental  consistency  at  least, 
of  those  who  like  her  desire  to  retain  what  was  mani- 
fested, but  to  thrust  aside  the  manifesting  Person, 


ROBERT  ELSMERE:' 


49 


and  all  that  His  living  personality  entails:  or,  if  I 
may  borrow  an  Aristotelian  figure,  to  keep  the  acci- 
dents and  discard  the  substance.  I  cannot  pretend 
to  offer  a  solution  of  this  hard  riddle.  But  there  is 
one  feature  which  almost  uniformly  marks  writers 
whose  mind  as  in  this  case  is  of  a  religious  tone,  or 
who  do  not  absolutely  exclude  religion,  while  they 
reject  the  Christian  dogma  and  the  authority  of 
Scripture.  They  appear  to  have  a  very  low  estimate 
both  of  the  quantity  and  the  quality  of  sin  :  of  its 
amount,  spread  like  a  deluge  over  the  world,  and  of 
the  subtlety,  intensity,  and  virulence  of  its  nature. 
I  mean  a  low  estimate  as  compared  with  the  mourn- 
ful denunciations  of  the  sacred  writings,  or  with  the 
language  especially  of  the  later  Christian  Confessions. 
Now  let  it  be  granted  that,  in  interpreting  those  Con- 
fessions, we  do  not  sufficiently  allow  for  the  enor- 
mous differences  among  human  beings — differences 
both  of  original  disposition,  and  of  ripened  character. 
We  do  not  sufficiently  take  account  of  the  fact  that, 
while  disturbance  and  degradation  have  so  heavily 
affected  the  mass,  there  are  a  happy  few  on  whom 
nature's  degeneracy  has  but  lightly  laid  its  hand.  In 
the  biography  of  the  late  Dr.  Marsh  we  have  an  illus- 
tration apt  for  my  purpose.  His  family  was  straitly 
Evangelical.  He  underwent  what  he  deemed  to  be 
conversion.  A  like-minded  friend  congratulated  his 
mother  on  the  work  of  Divine  grace  in  her  son.  But, 


50  "ROBERT  ELSMERE." 

in  the  concrete,  she  mildly  resented  the  remark,  and 
replied  that  in  truth  "  Divine  grace  would  find  very 
little  to  do  in  her  son  William." 

In  the  novel  of  "  The  Unclassed,"  by  the  author  of 
"  Thyrza,"  which  like  "  Robert  Elsmere  "  is  of  the 
didactic  and  speculative  class,  the  leading  man-char- 
acter, when  detailing  his  mental  history,  says  that 
"  sin  "  has  never  been  for  him  a  word  of  weighty  im- 
port. So  ingenuous  a  confession  is  not  common.  I 
remember  but  one  exception  to  the  rule  that  the 
negative  writers  of  our  own  day  have  formed,  or  at 
least  have  exhibited,  a  very  feeble  estimate  of  the 
enormous  weight  of  sin,  as  a  factor  in  the  condition 
of  man  and  of  the  world.  That  exception  is  Amiel. 
Mrs.  Ward  has  prefixed  to  her  translation  of  his  re- 
markable and  touching  work  an  Introduction  from 
which  I  make  the  following  extract : 

"  His  Calvinistic  training  lingers  long  in  him ;  and  what 
detaches  him  from  the  Hegelian  school,  with  which  he  has 
much  in  common,  is  his  own  stronger  sense  of  personal  need, 
his  preoccupation  with  the  idea  of  sin.  He  speaks  (says  M. 
Renan  contemptuously)  of  sin,  of  salvation,  of  redemption 
and  conversion,  as  if  these  things  were  realities.  He  asks 
me,  '  What  does  M.  Renan  make  of  sin  ? '  '  Eh  bien,  je 
crois  que  je  le  supprime.'  " 

The  closing  expression  is  a  happy  one :  sin  is  for  the 
most  part  suppressed. 

We  are  bound  to  believe,  and  I  for  one  do  believe, 
that  in  many  cases  the  reason  why  the  doctrines  of 


"ROBERT  ELSMERE."  51 

grace,  so  profoundly  embedded  in  the  Gospel,  are 
dispensed  with  by  the  negative  writers  of  the  day,  is 
in  many  cases  because  they  have  not  fully  had  to  feel 
the  need  of  them:  because  they  have  not  travelled 
with  Saint  Paul  through  the  dark  valley  of  agonizing 
conflict,  or  with  Dante  along  the  circles  downward 
and  the  hill  upward ;  because,  having  to  bear  a  smaller 
share  than  others  of  the  common  curse  and  burden, 
they  stagger  and  falter  less  beneath  its  weight. 

But  ought  they  not  to  know  that  they  are  physi- 
cians, who  have  not  learned  the  principal  peril  of  the 
patient's  case,  and  whose  prescription  accordingly 
omits  the  main  requisite  for  a  cure  ?  For  surely  in 
this  matter1  there  should  be  no  mistake.  As  the  en- 
tire Levitical  institutions  seem  to  have  been  con- 
structed to  impress  upon  the  Hebrew  mind  a  deep 
and  definite  idea  of  sin,  we  find  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment that  that  portion  of  our  Lord's  work  was  so  to 
speak  ready-made.  But  He  placed  it  at  the  founda- 
tion of  His  great  design  for  the  future.  "  When  the 
Comforter  is  come,  He  will  reprove  the  world  of  sin, 
and  of  righteousness,  and  of  judgment."*  Mrs. 
Ward  seeks,  and  even  with  enthusiasm,  to  "  make  for 
righteousness  ";  but  the  three  terms  compose  an  or- 
ganic whole,  and  if  a  part  be  torn  away  the  residue 
will  bleed  to  death.  For  the  present,  however,  we 

*John  xvi.  8. 


24501 

52  "ROBERT  ELSMEK 

have  only  to  rest  in  the  real  though  but  partial  con- 
solation that,  if  the  ancient  and  continuous  creed  of 
Christendom  has  slipped  away  from  its  place  in  Mrs. 
Ward's  brilliant  and  subtle  understanding,  it  has 
nevertheless  by  no  means  lost  a  true,  if  unacknowl* 
edged,  hold  upon  the  inner  sanctuary  of  her  heart. 


University  of  California 

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Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


OlOCT 


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tention  of  that  constant  UUK.  ....  *"  '      2 

<£y  /^f  skeptical  belles-lettres  of  the  day." 


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THE  DIVINE  ORIGIN  OF  CHRISTIANITY  INDICATED 
BY  ITS  HISTORICAL  EFFECTS.  Ten  Lectures, 
with  Notes,  by  RICHARD  S.  STORRS,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

One  vol.,  8vo $2.5O 

One  vol.,  I2mo 2. OO 

Of  the  purpose  of  these  lectures  it  may  be  said,  that 
they  are  neither  metaphysical  nor  theological  in  their 
character.  The  author  simply  assumes  the  existence 
of  the  New  Testament  writings,  and  with  no  prelim- 
inary examination  of  the  authenticity  of  their  reputed 
authorship,  traces  the  various  influences  exerted  by 
Christianity  over  the  spiritual,  social,  moral,  mental, 
and  political  life  of  mankind.  The  author's  high  rep- 
utation as  a  lecturer  in  history  is  sufficient  guarantee 
of  accurate  scholarship  and  exhaustive  research.  As 
an  impartial  .and  scholarly  survey  of  the  history  of 
humanitarianism  and  philanthropy,  and  of  the  rapid 
and  steady  progress  made  since  the  advent  of  Christ, 
in  the  various  departments  of  human  life, — letters  and 
morals,  music,  politics,  and  society, — this  book,  it  is 
confidently  believed,  is  wider  in  its  range,  and  more 
comprehensive  in  its  treatment  of  the  subject  than  anyj 
other  similar  volume  heretofore  published.  The  skilfu 
marshalling  of  this  vast  array  of  facts,  so  as  to  sa 
port,  illustrate,  and  fortify  the  argument  advanced! 
the  author,  makes  the  book  a  most  brilliant  con]| 
tion  to  the  literature  of  Christian  apologetics. 

"  No   living  preacher   is   better  qualified  than   Ij 
to  prepare  such  a  work.     His  historical  studies, 
profound  and  minute.     He  preserves  the  calm 
the  historian   in  defending  the  thesis  assigned^ 


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